Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is widely used and is useful where communication channels exhibit severe multi-path interference. OFDM divides a signal waveform into orthogonal signals (“subcarriers”) sending multiple symbols in parallel. In order to promote industry standardization, communication protocols may include Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) specifications for OFDM communication system components. For example, in an Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) wireless local area network (WLAN) specification (e.g., IEEE 802.11a), OFDM hardware specifications are promoted for compliance with the WLAN specification. Notably, though an IEEE 802.11a specification is used hereafter, it should be appreciated that other communication protocols or standards may be used.
Signal computation requirements of an OFDM communication system, such as arithmetic calculations in particular, may be very demanding. By way of example, WLAN compliant with IEEE 802.11a has arithmetic calculations in the billions operations per second. This is beyond the capacity of conventional Digital Signal Processors (DSPs). However, circuitry to support billions of operations per second for OFDM communication can be expensive.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and useful to provide a packet detector for an OFDM communication systems that employs less circuitry than previously used.